It's interesting to look back and
notice how much our hi-fi magazines have changedover
time. When I got my first job on a hi-fi magazine, as Features Editor onHi-Fi News & Record Review

One could suggest that the Hi-Fi News of
the time had got stuck in its hobbyistpast, and not
really come to terms with hi-fi's transition to a consumer mass marketwhich
had started in the early 1970s. Since its birth in 1956, Hi-Fi News hadhad the hi-fi scene to itself, but rivals started appearing in
the late-1960s, and thegoalposts started moving.

I well recall two facts emerging soon after I
joined. The first was that a readershipsurvey had
revealed that the equipment reviews were actually the most popular partof the magazine. The second was that the circulation figures
for What Hi-Fi had justovertaken those for Hi-Fi
News. (Both were selling around 55,000 copies a month atthe
time – happy days!)

That said, Hi-Fi News still had the
respect of the industry, and the stimulus ofcompetition
was probably valuable, as I believe the second half of the 1970s – JohnAtkinson, current Editor of Stereophile, joined a year
after me, while John Crabbeprovided a steadying
influence on our possible excesses – may well have been the mostcreative
period in the magazine's long history.

Hi-Fi for Pleasure had
actually set the equipment review agenda, introducing multicomponentgroup
tests by reviewers like Martin Colloms and Stan Curtis that were asmuch
features as reviews and formed the centrepiece of each issue.Hi-Fi
Choice material.
While the ‘one topic' approach allowed considerable investigative depth, it
wasalso something of a straightjacket – one reason
why I enjoyed re-launching Choice as aregular A4
monthly at the end of 1987.

Give or take a few ups and downs, hi-fi's boom
years ran through most of the 1970sand 1980s, with
healthy circulations and advertising revenues. Things have becomeprogressively
tougher since then, especially since the arrival of the internet, but it's atestament to the staying power of the hi-fi hobby and passion
that the UK still has six‘on-paper' hi-fi magazines
today, and each has established its own distinct identity.Equipment
reviews remain the core element of all the magazines, but the hi-fimarket
never stops evolving, and magazines must reflect this to retain their
readership.To my mind the current strength of the ‘high
end' and weakness of the broadmainstream indicates that
much of hi-fi is reverting to its pre-mass-market enthusiastledstate.
While HIFICRITIC will continue to include plenty of equipment reviews,it will also have a generous allocation of the sort of features
which I believe fellowenthusiasts will find
interesting.